


A Continuing Story

by purplebutterflies



Series: On the North Winds [2]
Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ficlet Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 05:41:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1293418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplebutterflies/pseuds/purplebutterflies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A selection of short pieces that take place in the On the North Winds universe, but don't fit into the story proper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Continuing Story

**Author's Note:**

> The update of the regular story is going to be late this week because I spent all weekend visiting family, so instead I'm posting something that I actually put on Tumblr a few weeks ago and kept forgetting to mention here. If I have time I'd like to do more short ficlets like this.

Anna picked at her food. Her legs drummed dully on the chair legs, and her fork made sharp dings and grating scrapes as she moved it uselessness around her plate.

"You need to eat, darling," Frida cajoled, keeping her voice as soothing and calm as she possibly could. For more than a week now the castle had been a hum of activity, tension and fear guiding every action of every inhabitant. As weak and sick and anxious as Frida knew herself to be, it could only be weighing that much more heavily on Anna, who was so small and young and knew only that her sister was gone, her father busy, her mother frightened.

So while Josef searched for Elsa, Frida stayed with Anna. And though they never left the castle Frida ended every day exhausted and stiff. It was a constant struggle every waking moment to steady her voice, to still the trembling in her fingers. In the end all her best efforts only made her voice sound strange to her own ears, and her movements feel disjointed and foreign. And nothing she did, not her touch nor her smiles nor her assurances, comforted her daughter.

"It's your favorite," she said, but Anna ony sunk down deeper into the chair. In the beginning she had sobbed and shouted, but a few days ago she had abruptly fallen silent. Frida thought it was simply that she didn't have the strength to carry on anymore. Mealtimes passed with barely a dent made in her plate, and her sleep was fretful and infrequent. This morning she had become faint and dizzy on the staircase. Though Frida wouldn't have thought there was room for it, fresh worry knotted in the pit of her stomach.

"I'm not hungry," Anna mumbled. The tines of her fork skittered jarringly across the plate again.

"You barely ate anything for lunch."

"It doesn't taste good."

"It's the same roast as last time." She reached out, smoothing back Anna's bangs and running a thumb along her temple. "Please. Eat just a little, for me."

Anna took a miniscule bite, but chewed it like she expected to gag. Then she pushed her plate away and said, "I don't want anymore. My stomach hurts."

"It's because you're not eating." Anna made no sound, and Frida fought to keep the worry from flickering on her face. "Would you like something else? How about some ice cream?" She needed more than sugar and sweets, but maybe even that would be better than nothing.

"Yeah," Anna said, and she sent for it at once.

By the time the bowl arrived, Anna had wiggled out of her seat to wander aimlessly around the dining room. Frida tried to coax her back to the table, but in the end she only ate two spoonfuls before declaring she was done. Feeling exhausted and inept, Frida finally dismissed her to her bath.

\---

It was disconcerting how the castle swung between loud, overwhelming activity and utter silence. Frida didn't know what to do with herself when Anna was away. She knew what to do even less when Anna was with her.

In the silence she could only think of Elsa. Her own mind was disjointed and polarized; on that night it had seemed not only plausible but _right_ that the wind would carry Elsa away. In the stark light of day it seemed ridiculous. She didn't know what she believed. She didn't know what she _wanted_ to believe. Elsa was only a child, and if she had fled under her own power then surely she could have only gone so far. On the first day, the second, the third, Frida had hoped for this.

But it hadn't been two or three days. It had been ten now, ten days of the entirety of the guard scouring every inch of the mountain range, ten days with no sign. If there was only Elsa, wandering the mountains alone...ten days was much too long.

If the wind took her, might it have led her somewhere she would be safe? Somewhere she could be cared for? Was she close enough to be found, to find her own way home? Or was she far, far away, and still alone?

The door to her sitting room flew open, and her nerves were so ragged that Frida cried out. But it was only Anna, warm and damped haired, racing across the room to clamber into her lap.

She snuggled close, wet hair sticking to Frida's chin and arms tucked into the space between them. She cuddled like an infant. She was too tall now, too long-limbed and heavy, for the position to be quite comfortable. Elbows dug into Frida's ribs, and Anna's knees knocked the slats at the back of the rocking chair. Frida wrapped her arms around Anna and held her so tightly that her heart pounded under the weight.

"Can I sleep with you?" Anna asked softly. She had spent the first week clutched between her parents at night; but Josef was agitated even in rest, the step of the guard outside their room heavy, and she herself unable to resist the urge to squeeze Anna's hand, feel her pulse and her heartbeat. There was no rest to be found in their bed, and while she didn't know if Anna was any better alone, at least in her own room she had a chance. "My bed hurts."

"How does it hurt?" she asked.

Anna bounced in her lap, awkward and impatient. "The sheets are scratchy. They hurt me."

"Do you want new sheets?"

"I want to sleep with you."

"I'll lay with you," she said, "until you fall asleep. How's that?"

"But you'll leave," Anna whimpered, and Frida's heart broke.

"Ssh. Ssh. I'm right here." It was a promise. "It will be alright." It was a lie. She pressed a palm to the back of Anna's head, guiding her down, and rocked.

When Elsa was born, she had spent countless nights just like this. Her firstborn had a thin, weedy cry, and in the first months she was terrified that she would be too far to hear it, wouldn't know when her daughter needed her, and so had spent hours every evening simply holding and rocking her. Those early nights were difficult; Elsa had been born during an unusually hot summer, and spent the whole of the season fussy and agitated. She had only calmed at the first snowfall. They hadn't known then why. Frida wished they had never had to find out.

By the time Anna was born she was more trustful of the nursemaids, or perhaps simply more tired and willing to ask for help. She still held her daughter in the evenings, just feeling her weight and listening to her breath, but it tapered off after weeks, not months. There was the kingdom and the castle and Elsa to tend too. She hadn't realized she was missing anything then. She knew now.

She didn't know how much time passed before Anna's breath evened in sleep, her limbs slack and swaying. She didn't know how long she waited after, just holding onto her daughter, before she finally beckoned the nursemaid to take Anna to bed. Hoping one of them, at least, would be able to rest tonight.

\---

The captain of the guard had a spectacular argument with Josef after nearly two weeks of searching; Frida didn't overhear the altercation, but could guess at its content. It apparently drove Captain Halvard to the stables, where he interrogated the peasant boy who had taken up residence there yet again. In the end he came away with nothing more than a deep suspicion of the boy's character.

Frida watched it all and held her tongue. She didn't know what was right. Josef needed desperately to believe he could still protect Elsa somehow, and to him that meant protecting her secret. Frida worried in the night, when Anna was in bed and Josef was locked in his study, but she couldn't see how the truth would help. Knowing had helped them, and Elsa, little enough over the years.

Josef didn't come to bed that night. She had barely seen him in days; didn't think Anna had seen him at all. When she could no longer take the still, silent bedroom, Frida donned her dressing gown and went instead to the room where her daughter slept, alone.

She was careful in opening the door. Anna's bed was the first one visible, and the lantern cast thin rays over it.

She saw the pillow askew, the blankets kicked back towards the footboard, and the bed empty. Fear hit her like a thunderclap; her face was cold and tingling, the lantern bobbing wildly, and she flung open the door, her daughter's name on the tip of her tongue.

Her voice stilled to see the small bundle in the bed against the opposite wall. Anna was curled up, not on the pillows or under the covers, simply huddled in the center of Elsa's bed. Frida's heart thumped so heavily it shook her whole body, and the lantern clattered as she set it on a table and dimmed the wick.

Anna made a broken, distressed sound as Frida gently unwound her arms, which had been clutching two plush dolls to her chest. Her eyes blinked sleepily, and when they fell on her mother her entire body loosened and slumped. She didn't protest as Frida ushered her to the head of the bed, or bade her lift herself so that the blankets could be pulled down. When they were both settled underneath the sheets she wiggled to her mother's side, resting a cheek on her breast and jabbing cold toes into her thighs.

"I'm tired, Mama," she said around a sigh.

Frida stroked her hair. "I know, darling. I know. I'm right here. Rest." That night she didn't sleep so that Anna could.

\---

Gerda had taken Anna out for some sun. It would help, she said. Frustrated with her daughter's reticence, and ashamed at her frustration, Frida had agreed. With Anna gone she wandered the halls. She didn't know where Josef was; maybe talking with the guards, maybe in the mountains himself again. He was so exhausted he could barely speak in the evenings, but still he didn't rest well.

When she could bear the silence and the thoughts that came with it no longer she turned towards the gardens. The weather was fair, and as she approached the outer door she saw it propped open.

Then, through the open door, she heard Anna shriek, and her chest seized. Her walk turned to a run so quickly she stumbled, and burst clumsily through the doorway.

Anna was laughing, laughing and running and skipping. There was a boy with her; the boy from the mountain, she realized, and his little reindeer. He clapped the reindeer now, laughing, and said, "You made us lose, Sven!" The scene, so easy and happy and _normal_ , brought Frida up short.

Then Anna saw her and cried, "Mama!" There was an energy to her voice, a warmth and lightness, that had been too long missing. She flung herself into Frida's arms. Gerda greeted her with a curtsy; the boy watched curiously, then clutched the hem of his shirt and tried to copy the motion.

"Darling," she said, and pressed kisses to her daughter flushed and sweaty cheeks. "What have you been doing?"

"Playing with Kristoff and Sven," she said, kicking her legs and winding her arms around Frida's neck. "We were playing hide and seek!"

"Were you now?" She looked to the boy, who was toying with the tie of his pants and swaying gently. When he noticed her attention he clasped his hands behind his back and smiled. Hadn't he said he didn't have a home? Surely, if he did, someone would have come searching for him by now?

"Well," she said at last, "maybe you can play again tomorrow. But now it's almost time for dinner, and we need to wash up."

"Okay," Anna said easily. Frida wondered if she might eat tonight. Then she squeezed herself to her mother's chest and threw an arm over her shoulder in a wave. "Bye Kristoff! Bye Sven!"

"Bye!" she heard the boy call. Gerda made to follow the two of them into the house, but Frida put a hand out to stay her.

"Fetch Kai," she said quietly. "Tell him to find that boy's family, if he has any. If he does not...make sure he is well cared for."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Gerda bowed again and took her leave. When Anna pulled back her expression was still open and happy, and it was enough to ease at least some small amount of the pain in Frida's own chest.

\---

That night Anna awoke screaming. The servants rushed her to the royal chambers, but Frida and Josef could only watch, powerless, as she thrashed and choked on her tears.

"I'm scared," she sobbed, and Frida held her. "I'm cold." She shivered. Josef's face was hard and his lips thin; he threw off the covers and rushed around the room, gathering matches and tinder.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Anna coughed and hiccuped, and Frida ran a soothing hand down her back.

"She's cold," he said. "Maybe a fire will…"

The night was warm, with scarcely a breeze. Frida pressed a palm to Anna's forehead, cheeks, sternum. If anything she felt flushed, red-faced and unusually warm.

"Josef," she called. "Josef, stop!" He spun towards her, paper in one hand and a poker in the other. "You can't...you can't help her like this."

"I have to do _something_ ," he said, looking angry and lost and so, so helpless. "I have to--" His hands flexed, eager and impotent.

"Yes," Frida said. "Yes. Come here." She reached out a hand to him. He stared a moment more, then put down his tools and let his wife draw him to the bed. The mattress dipped heavily beneath him, sloping them towards each other. Anna did not reach, nor protest, when Frida pressed her into Josef's arms. In the motion their hands brushed; his were tense and trembling. Hers were little better.

As gangly as Anna felt in her own arms, she looked tiny huddled against her father's chest. His motions were stiff, awkward. Frida wondered if his thoughts mirrored her own: _If she is all we have left, then we cannot make a mistake. Not another_. Anna sniffled, hiccuped again, flexed her hands in the fabric of her father's shirt; Josef's hand hovered over her head, hesitant. When he finally lowered it to stroke her hair Frida felt as though her body had been loosed from a vise.

"You're safe, Anna," he murmured, voice thin and breaking. "We're here. You're safe."

Frida slid to his side; suddenly there was an arm around her shoulders, pressing her to his chest. Josef clung, clutched, his whole body shaking. Anna watched, her eyes wide and wet and red, but her breath even and her sobs finally banished.

Frida curled against her husband. Held her daughter’s hand. "Yes," she said. "We're all right here."

 


End file.
